


A Matter of Finding One's Self

by Azpidistra



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:45:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8733547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azpidistra/pseuds/Azpidistra
Summary: Post-Series. It wasn't the first time they had left. It was just the first time it hurt this much.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Yuletide 2006.

It was all relative: both love and hate. They met in Chubbie's, all because one needed a roommate, and the other needed a place to live. They bonded over the color of a refrigerator. Both fell in love with the same girl, only to cook the pet bird they had bought for her in the oven in the very same apartment in which they lived, the girl too. She always was too tall.

There was the night Jack Hunter learned his father died, and the girl comforted him, holding him while he cried, they sitting on the couch, only weeks later chalking it to grief, and the age-old truth -"when someone dies, you're most likely to have sex, if only to prove you're still alive." Eric Matthews had already moved out by then, having confronted them on what they had never told him. They had been in the hospital then too, waiting; hoping Eric's new little brother would be ok, and able to go home. Probably the girl -the friend, the roommate-probably she had known, had always known. It was obvious, she told them, years later, long after Jack's father had cut him off, and Angela had left for, and then returned from Europe; long after Eric had followed his brother and sister-in-law and brother's best friend to New York, and Jack had gone into the Peace Corps. Jack's absence had been the longest two years of Eric's life.

He settled into New York fairly quickly, finding an apartment in the same building as Cory and Topanga, living with Shawn. He debated acting for a little while, but then remembering the fiasco of a time when he had temporarily worked on Kid Gets Acquainted With the Universe, he decided that might not be his best of ideas, so he found a job at a daycare instead, where he taught the kids about duckies, and read them Dr. Suess, and told them stories about the magical Mr. Feeny. He dated one of the kid's moms for a couple of months, then a barista from a coffeshop he stopped in every morning. He started school at night in early childhood development, and Shawn never was able to get over the idea of him studying in the evenings. Topanga was pregnant, and he doted on her, excited at the possibility of a little boy or little girl Matthews, already bouncing with everything he would teach the kid, and how he would be the bestest uncle, and spoil the kid rotten on weekends, pretending to ignore Cory's laughter, and completely missing the worried look in Cory's eyes.

Jack emailed him first. From Honduras, telling him about the crash Spanish course he took before arrival, and how it had taught him nothing practical, how the showers were horrible, and how he was working at a school, helping teach children to read, and how he wanted to organize a book drive for the holidays. Eric didn't email him, and when Shawn asked if he wanted to order in pizza or Chinese for dinner, he blurted, "General Tsao's Chicken, and your brother speaks Spanish!" Shawn took the outburst in stride, finding the take-out menus in the drawer, calling over to Cory and Topanga's to ask what they wanted, giving Eric the extra fortune cookie after the food had arrived.

When Jack emailed the second time, long after the New year had passed, he talked about the success of his book drive, and how far along his children had come, and that he and some others had taken a recent trip to Mexico over the Christmas holidays, and he had bought Eric one of those woven blankets, and peppers "but the good, spicy kind", and hopefully they had arrived, if not yet, then soon. He didn't say if he had bought presents for anyone else. Eric still didn't email him back. He started dating a girl he had met in one of his classes, five years his junior, and with plans to be a kindergarten teacher. She was from Boston originally, studied in university there, worked in JumpStart before coming to New York. That relationship lasted only a couple of months.

In the third email, Jack talked about nothing in particular.

In the fourth, he promptly told Eric that pigs did indeed fly. Eric still didn't email Jack, and Jack stopped writing. He had saved every email, and enrolled in night Spanish class, struggling through the exercises every night. He asked Shawn for help, but never answered when Shawn asked him why.

Why was he doing this? What for? Who for?

But Eric shook his head, and went off on some tangent about contractions, and why did the Spanish language only have two, and what was this about boy and girl declensions, and why if two 'l's were together, did it not then sound like an 'l'. On those nights, after Eric had retreated into his bedroom to study by himself, Shawn would go by Cory and Topanga's, and not say hello, but "I'm worried about Eric."

"So are we," Topanga answered. "He must really miss Jack."

"Well, sure!" Shawn waved his arms, sighing, falling into their couch. "So do I. I also miss Angela, but I'm not moping."

"Yes, but Angela's coming home soon."

When Topanga had the baby -a boy, whom they named George Alan-Eric was the first one in the hospital room, with balloons and flowers, and smiles.

"Someone should let Jack know," Cory said quietly. His parents had made it in from Philadelphia, and so had Mr. Feeny, and Morgan, and Joshua. Topanga's parents hadn't been able to make it, and Angela called from Paris, promising she'd be home in a matter of a few weeks. Shawn grinned, whispering "I love yous" into the phone. "Maybe you should, Eric. He'd love to hear from you."

"Let it alone, Cor."

They celebrated when Topanga came home from the hospital, and Angela came home from Europe. They ordered in dinner from the little Italian restaurant down the street, and opened a bottle of wine. Eric tickled his new newphew's feet, and played with his tiny toes, and gurgled happily along.

Cory fielded the phone calls, ones from old friends wishing them congratulations, and asking when the next wedding would be. Both Angela and Shawn laughed at that one, cuddled in one corner of the couch together, both looking like neither would let go again. Cory paled on the sixth or seventh phone call, mumbled something, and handed the phone to Eric. "It's for you," he said simply.

"Hello?"

"I got your email," came from the response on the other end.

"Jack." Time stopped. Motion stopped. Action stopped. Only after he had closed the apartment door behind him, sliding on the wall to the floor, did he hear again the noise through the plaster. "Jack," he repeated the name.

"What's the kid's name?"

"George. George Alan Lawrence Matthews." He paused. "I'm studying Spanish."

"Shawn told me."

"Oh."

"Eric-"

"Why did you leave?"

"Because."

"No, it's... You left. We haven't been very good friends."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"We've never tried. It's always been about competition between us. First it was with Rachel, then it was-we've never talked."

"We talk all the time! Or we did. Until recently. Why did you never answer my emails?"

"Couldn't."

"Why?"

"Just couldn't. I've hurt you, Jack. I'm sorry."

Silence. Jack's breathing. Slow on the intake, and slower on the outtake. "Don't be. You might be right."

"About?"

"I needed to find myself. I needed to discover who I was. I wasn't the rich kid anymore. I always had money, and then I didn't, and-I thought maybe that was all I was, all that anyone saw me as. I needed to know I wasn't. I'm sorry, Eric."

"No."

"No?"

"No, you were not just the rich kid. You were -are-Jack Hunter. You're Shawn Hunter's brother." Pause. "You're my best friend." Another pause. "Come home, Jack."

"I can't, not yet."

"Yeah..."

"Eric."

"What?"

"I didn't leave to leave you. I didn't know-it was always girls with you. It was one night, and we were drunk, and both-"

"-leaving the next day. I wasn't that drunk."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"Are you really learning Spanish?"

"Yes."

"It's for me, isn't it?"

Another pause, then: laughter. Eric relaxed. He felt the tension roll off; he felt. It was like: it was the night he realized maybe he wasn't psychic, and Jack banged his head on a dumpster because the lottery numbers hadn't been quite what he wanted. It was the night he would always remember because when he mumbled about this night being the night Jack would know for banging his head on the dumpster, and he called Jack his best friend. Because when Jack stepped back, and looked at him in that moment, he knew. He knew in the apology before Jack said anything; he knew: Jack was not just his best friend.

He knew all about soulmates. He had them everywhere he looked: his parents, Mr. Feeny and Dean Bolander, Shawn and Angela, Cory and Topanga. He had his in that moment. He had forgot everything else. He had Jack.

And he laughed, he laughed until the strain and the anxiety of the long months had left his muscles, and tears sprung to his eyes. And in that laughter he uttered a single word: "Yes."


End file.
